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Case Study: Imaginative Thinking in Action 141

spectrum of corporate conformity that lay somewhere between diplomacy
and suicide. They described themselves by the ODD word humbitious. That
is to say, they possessed the humility to recognize that they didn’t know
everything, yet they were ambitious enough to be bold when their mission
called for courage. Heresy is no profession for the faint of heart. To be
effective, ODDsters needed extraordinary proficiency in the arts of commu-
nication, facilitation, and corporate surveillance. Communication skills
were clearly necessary for articulating rational and compelling arguments
across all levels of the corporation. Facilitation skills were important for
managing executive-level strategy discussions. And corporate surveillance
demanded an understanding of the corporate power structure, awareness of
the depths and limits of managers’ knowledge, and acuity to the issues that
keep managers awake at night.
Some of these skills were acquired through formal training. The
Global Business Network, a hub for the pragmatic intelligentsia, for
example, taught a course in scenario planning and provided customized
facilitation training. Other training was opportunistic. For example,
ODDsters spent time shadowing representatives of the various manage-
ment consulting firms from which AT&T sought strategic guidance (and
bought hundreds of millions of dollars worth of advice). But for the most
part, ODDster training was on the job, learning by doing. During its
three-and-a-half-year life span, ODD developed a number of techniques
that aspiring corporate strategists should seek to emulate. Leveraging the
power of networks was perhaps the most important. The ODDsters started
the Grass-Roots Network of Strategic Thinkers (GNOST) early in their
existence, recognizing the need for a larger group of strategic thinkers to
help complete the mission. GNOST grew to include more than 400 mem-
bers, AT&Ters at all levels across the organization. GNOST connected
ODD to subject experts in key areas and to key pain points in the organ-
ization in need of some ODDism. In addition, it uncovered latent heretics
and activists who advanced ODD’s mission in their own business units.
ODD built and leveraged external networks as well, sprinkling its work-
shops with external perspectives and lining up speakers for its “Not Your
Usual Research” series.
ODD would build networks any way it could: top down, bottom up, and
sideways. It supported them with interactive tools such as a Web site and an